Your Actions Are Speaking Louder Than Your Parenting Skills

As the parent of two grown children, and two toddlers, I have become incredibly aware of the things I have passed down to my kids ( I mean BEYOND the love of cheese and bacon!)

I used to like to blame their father for things I saw in them that I didn't like and to take all the credit for the good things I saw.

These are a few things I have observed:

As it relates to my older kids, they are know-it-alls.  I say that with love, as I, too am a know-it-all.  I am keenly aware of the fact that I do not, in fact, know it all, or close to "it all", but nonetheless, I have accumulated a vast amount of useless knowledge which serves me well, but annoys LOTS of people.  I worked with a woman once who called my inane facts "Carol Fun Facts."  She DID NOT say this with love.

Funny thing is that in my family, I am the lesser know-it-all.  My husband is the Supreme know-it-all.  He enters most conversations with these two words, "Well actually . . ."  My sons follow a very close second to his know-it-all-ness (yes, that's a made up word.  We know-it-alls take license with language rules.)

Secondly, they are almost never wrong.  And if by some chance they think they are wrong, they will spend a good amount of time researching how right they are so that they can inform others of how "right" they are.  They most assuredly got this one from me.

Thirdly, they are collectors.  They collect information.  They collect shoes (yes, they are boys, but they collect SHOES!)  Jacob came to visit for one week and he brought 10 TEN pairs of shoes!  Yep.  They also got this one from me.

Fourth, they have VAST vocabularies.  When they were little, I didn't dumb down my vocabulary for them.  I talked like I talk and they developed very large vocabularies.

Lastly, (though I could go on FOREVER) they are incredibly real people who deeply love others, who sometimes get hurt because they love so deeply, and who genuinely care for those who are needy, broken, or hurting.

Even with the girls, who are only 4 year olds, I see so much of my personality coming out in them.

We often blame our parenting skills (both good and bad) on the things our children do. But more often than not, it is our personality that is their instructor.

I don't know if that makes sense to you or not, but the point I am trying to make is this.  YES, your parenting makes a difference.  Failing to teach your kids right from wrong, failing to hold them accountable for their mistakes, failing to expect them to do their best, is poor parenting, and it will effect who they become.

But a lot of who YOU ARE is who they will become.  So think long and hard about the things you see in yourself that you do not want to pass on to your kids, and work on changing those things.

All that to say, teach your children well. Your actions are speaking louder than your words.

Day 83: Why We Do What We Do

I heard a story once about a woman who was cutting the ends off of her Thanksgiving ham when her daughter asked why she was doing that.  The mother said it had something to do with the ham absorbing the glaze, but after she thought about her answer, she wasn't so sure, so she contacted her mom (the girl's grandmother) to ask why.

The grandmother said she wasn't sure either but she did it because her mom always had.  So the woman contacted the great-grandmother and asked her why she always cut the ends off the ham and the great grandmother laughed and said, "Because my pan was too small!"

Sometimes we do things or worse yet CONTINUE doing things for the strangest reasons!

Someone asked me the other day why I numbered my posts.  They asked if it was so I could keep up with how many posts I write each year, and that made me laugh.

A couple of years ago, I decided I was going to post a picture every day that I blogged, and I decided to number the photographs.

Well, I didn't do very well at the picture taking, but I excelled at numbering.  It's a gift really! 

So here we are, over two and half years later, and I am still numbering my posts.  I have actually thought about NOT numbering my posts many times, but I'm such a "routine" kind of girl that once I have a routine, I hate to break it!

But a friend gave me a sign that said, "At least once every day do something that scares you."

So tomorrow, I'm going to STOP numbering my posts.  I know.  This is earth shattering news.  It'll probably blow up people's news feeds. It'll be viral by nightfall.  But then we'll all forget about it and someday people will say, "Remember when Carol Jones used to number her blog posts?  I sure miss those days."

All that to say, it's crazy why we do what we do.  What should you be re-evaluating these days?